WARREN Additional deputies to patrol housing authority properties

Police will also patrol TMHA. WARREN -- The Trumbull County Sheriff's Department will add two deputies to patrol Trumbull Metropolitan Housing Authority properties under a proposed contract awaiting approval by the sheriff and county commissioners. The two officers will be expected to mingle with residents at three Warren housing developments, monitor computer labs and perhaps walk a beat. "We may give them a car or two, but the objective is for them to get out of it," said Ernie Cook, chief deputy. Under the proposed three-year contract already approved by the TMHA board, the sheriff's department will provide four officers and a marked cruiser to TMHA for $225,000 the first year. Contract Two officers have been working for the housing authority as undercover narcotics agents under an annual contract first initiated in 1994. That contract covered only 80 percent of the cost, Cook said. The expanded contract, by covering all costs for four deputies, will save the county money, he said. "The Warren Police Department will still have the primary responsibility for patrols in the city of Warren," said Donald Emerson Jr., executive director of TMHA. "What we do with the sheriff's department will be above and beyond that." There will continue to be a special Warren Police Department unit to patrol TMHA properties after new security contracts are signed for next year, but the numbers have been scaled back. In the past, between seven and eight Warren officers were assigned to the unit and the city was paid between $340,000 and $350,000 a year, Emerson said. Next year's contract calls for three WPD officers and a supervisor for $175,000.

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